Mr. Punch at the Play.

by Various.

BEFORE THE CURTAIN

Most of the PUNCH artists of note have used their pencils on the theatre; with theatricals public and private none has done more than Du Maurier. All have made merry over the extravagances of melodrama and "problem" plays; the vanity and the mistakes of actors, actresses and dramatists; and the blunderings of the average playgoer.

MR. PUNCH genially satirises the aristocratic amateurs who, some few years ago, made frantic rushes into the profession, and for a while enjoyed more kudos as actors than they had obtained as t.i.tled members of the upper circle, and the exaggerated social status that for the time accrued to the professional actor as a consequence of this invasion.

The things he has written about the stage, quite apart from all reviewing of plays, would more than fill a book of itself; and he has slyly and laughingly satirised players, playwrights and public with an equal impartiality.

He has got a deal of fun out of the French dramas and the affected pleasure taken in them by audiences that did not understand the language. He has got even more fun out of the dramatists whose "original plays" were largely translated from the French, and to whom Paris was, and to some extent is still, literally and figuratively "a playground."

[Ill.u.s.tration]

MR. PUNCH AT THE PLAY

SOMETHING FOR THE MONEY

(_From the Playgoers' Conversation Book. Coming Edition._)

[Ill.u.s.tration]

I have only paid three guineas and a half for this stall, but it is certainly stuffed with the very best hair.

The people in the ten-and-sixpenny gallery seem fairly pleased with their dado.

I did not know the call-boy was at Eton.

The expenses of this house must be enormous, if they always play _Box and c.o.x_ with a rasher of real Canadian bacon.

How nice to know that the musicians, though out of sight under the stage, are in evening dress on velvet cushions!

Whoever is the author of this comedy, he has not written up with spirit to that delightful Louis the Fifteenth linen cupboard.

I cannot catch a word "Macbeth" is saying, but I can see at a glance that his kilt would be extremely cheap at seventy pounds.

I am not surprised to hear that the "Tartar's lips" for the cauldron alone add nightly something like fifty-five-and-sixpence to the expenses.

Do not bother me about the situation when I am looking at the quality of the velvet pile.

Since the introduction of the _live_ hedgehog into domestic drama obliged the management to raise the second-tier private boxes to forty guineas, the d.u.c.h.ess has gone into the slips with an order.

They had, perhaps, better take away the champagne-bottle and the diamond-studded whistle from the prompter.

Ha! here comes the chorus of villagers, provided with real silk pocket-handkerchiefs.

It is all this sort of thing that elevates the drama, and makes me so contented to part with a ten-pound note for an evening's amus.e.m.e.nt.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Pantomime Child (to admiring friend)._ "Yus, and there's another hadvantage in bein' a hactress. You get yer fortygraphs took for noffink!"]

THE HEIGHT OF LITERARY NECESSITY.--"Spouting" Shakspeare.

WHEN are parsons bound in honour not to abuse theatres?

When they take orders.

WHAT VOTE THE MANAGER OF A THEATRE ALWAYS HAS.--The "casting" vote.

"STAND NOT ON THE ORDER OF YOUR GOING."--An amiable manager says the orders which he issues for the pit and gallery are what in his opinion const.i.tute "the lower orders."

GREAT THEATRICAL EFFECT.--During a performance of _Macbeth_ at the Haymarket, the thunder was so natural that it turned sour a pint of beer in the prompter's-box.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE DRAMA.--"'Ere, I say, 'Liza, we've seen this 'ere play before!" "No, we ain't." [_Wordy argument follows._] "Why, don't you remember, same time as Bill took us to the 'Pig an' Whistle,' an' we 'ad stewed eels for supper?" "Oh lor! Yes, that takes me back to it!"]

[Ill.u.s.tration: TRUE APPRECIATION

(_Overheard at the Theatre_)

_Mrs. Parvenu._ "I don't know that I'm exackly _gone_ on Shakspeare Plays."

[_Mr. P. agrees._

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Conversationalist._ "Do you play ping-pong?"